wozzar

I am glad that Nonny Moose Avatar is back up. I missed it when it was taken down. To the Administrator will there be any annual award to honor the memory of Nonny Moose?

I saw this thread a couple of weeks ago and i was in shock and i didn't know how to respond at the time. I didnt know him but i had posted in his threads as he did in mine. He was a great guy and i am sadden by his passing. RIP Nonny moosse. iI hope that Simtropolis will have a memoriam thread for him in the future. And perhaps a new reward named after him given to someone in the community each year in is memory.

Cities: Skylines sells more within 24 hours than any previous game in the Paradox catalogue! STOCKHOLM – March 12, 2015 – Paradox Interactive and Colossal Order, currently gaming’s proudest parents, have today revealed that Cities: Skylines, the critically and commercially acclaimed city simulation game for PC, Mac and Linux, has sold an incredible 250,000 copies, including pre-orders, in its first 24 hours on sale, shattering sales records for every previous game in the Paradox catalogue released within the same period of time. Commenting on the success of Cities: Skylines, CEO of Paradox Interactive Fredrik Wester said, “We would like to offer our deepest and heartfelt thanks to the community for their passionate support and to let them know that we are committed to supporting this wonderful game for years to come, in the same way that we have for our Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis communities. We knew that we had a great game on our hands and so to be able to continue to provide fans of the game with a multitude of new content for it going forward is fantastic.” Wester then went on to talk about their relationship with developer Colossal Order. “Our congratulations and thanks must also go to developer Colossal Order for making what is being widely described as the new benchmark of the city building genre. We have forged a strong partnership with them over a number of years through the release of Cities in Motion and Cities in Motion 2, and I am happy to see such a talented team now being widely applauded for their unmatched passion and skill.” CEO of Colossal Order Mariina Hallikainen commented, "We at Colossal Order are absolutely thrilled to see so many players enjoying Cities: Skylines and that the Steam Workshop is filling up with amazing content from the modders. We are feeling very happy and proud and can't wait to continue working on Cities: Skylines together with the community!" Cities: Skylines is now available for purchase for $29.99, with a deluxe edition available for $39.99 that includes five in-game historical monuments.

I really love it when a small company of 13 people make a game that is very successfull and rub it in the noses of the big company of EA. The big question now is will EA make a attempt to make another Sim city to compete with CSL or will they just walkaway from the franchise.

Yes it does. It has a unlimited money mod made by CO. And also all milestones unlocked by a mod also created by CO.

Because of this the Steam workshop is out of control. It is very hard to keep up with the mods on the work shop. This why Steam should have bookmarks so you could bookmark in the workshop. It is just riduculs to have all these interchanges.

Could be EA employees doing the negs though i shouldnt really say that. I notice Metacritic had one neg and the user score was 9.6 SC4 got a user score of 8.7

Hey Nonny Moose do yourself a favour and by the game it is really worth it. I didnt buy SCS or SC13 but when i saw this i new it would be a winner. Sure it isnt Sim City but it does have some Sim Cities influnces. I highly recommend it.

How can EA make a mistake twice with Si With the success of Cities: Skylines and the closure of Maxis, all within a week, the pain in the Maxis' employees hearts must be hurting a lot... their own brand completely taken over by an another publisher... ouch! And this was the spike in download rate when Cities Skylines was released on Steam. A spike on about 600 Gbps. I reckon the sales for this would have far exceeded CO and Paradox expectations which is good for us gamers. And i have to say this is a very good game and it does have a Sim City feel to it. You can tell that the devs were influnced by the old Sim Cities it is very evident in the game.

I can remember when EA used to publish games that would force you to upgrade your PC. As for the Crytek engine, I assume wozzar is talking about this city builder: http://www.thearchitect-game.com (scroll down for videos). Thats the one Endo are the deveopers. It looks like according to the web site they are making a game.

EA forum users at SC13 are reminding EA how good Cities Skylines is and how SC13 should have been this game. Even a Maxis dev has commented and said it is a good game. EA are sitting back and watching all the gamers go by for CO that would really hurt EA knowing they could have made a better game.

I hate to break it to you, Simcity 4 was the last Simcity game Will Wright had any say in and it was much smaller than the previous titles. I was more referencing how EA has treated other iconic games and the personalities that were closely associated with those iconic games - in recent years, Richard Garriott, Mark Jacobs, and Chris Roberts all wanted to work with the titles that they were most closely associated with, that EA owned (Ultima, Dark Age of Camelot, Wing Commander). In every case, EA refused, and all three ultimately went on to do new games (Shroud of the Avatar, Camelot Unchained, Star Citizen) that fans of the original games are very much interested in (Star Citizen raised $75 million). The same could be said of Peter Molyneux, as he ultimately had to make a spiritual successor to Populous without using the Populous IP. These were all solid opportunities (and there were others) for EA to have engaged with the creators of their iconic games, and some of the bad feelings between those individuals and EA had lessened/evaporated as they were older and/or certain management types at EA were gone. In the case of Ultima (and DungeonKeeper), rather than engage the creators, they went with somebody named Paul Barnett, who ruined both franchises with some crummy free-to-play games, and forced the closure of Mythic Studios. Barnett, like a certain person associated with SC2013, was promoted and survived the closure of the studio he ran into the ground. The interesting thing is that rather than let Garriott or Jacobs buy/license the Ultima Online or Dark Age of Camelot games, they instead licensed them to an unrelated third party. Which is why, even if Wright showed an interest, or if Wright would like somebody else to personally take over, EA would most likely ignore him. If we get a SimCity, it won't be out of Maxis, and would likely be farmed out to a third party. EA would be better off out sourcing Sim City to Crytek. If anyone has seen a city simulation using the Crytek engine it is awsome.

I cant see EA walking away from the Sim city franchise. I think Cities Skylines will be a big wake up call for EA. EA had no competition before apart from CXL which wasnt a threat. But now EA do have some serious competition from CO. A new SimCity from EA on the desktop after Cities: Skylines and after the last SimCity fiasco is much tougher to pull off than a new SimCity in 2013 was. Much, much tougher, because the media and players will be extremely demanding and it would have to correct all of the deficiencies of the last SimCity PLUS exceed the areas of Skylines that people really like, and would likely have to match what people loved about SC4. That would be an extremely expensive endeavor, and should the pre-launch hype fall flat, it's liable to lose EA money out of the gate. Because of the media bloodbath over the last SimCity, and especially because of the serious competition, EA will shy away from SimCity on the desktop/laptop for years to come. It's in EA's nature - they controlled the MMORPG market at one point (Ultima Online), then let it languish, occasionally adding additional MMORPGs and then closing those down, with the result that in 2014 they turned Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot over to a third party. They controlled the space-flight sim market, then let it languish. I could go on, but the point is, they have a habit of acquiring studios/competitors, and then letting them languish and/or shutting them down (do we need to list all of the studios and games that EA buried?). UO and DAOC do raise an interesting point - would EA allow a third party to come in and take over the SimCity IP? In the case of UO/DAOC, Broadsword took over those two games, and presumably is paying EA some kind of fee. It allows EA to continue making money, kept those games going, and it also denied the creators of those games access to those games (similar to Wing Commander) forcing them to go in different directions (which they have). So if EA licensed SC out to a third party, it will not be anybody associating with Wright. I agree it will be much tougher for EA. The damage for EA was done when they brought out SCS and SC13 which both failed. However i still cant see EA walking away from it and be out done by CO a much smaller company than EA. The alternatives for EA are to walk away from it or build a new sim city like SC4. If they were to bring out a new sim city it will be a tougher sell for them as they have lost a big chunk of the user base to CO. However the reaL loser out of this isnt EA it is Foucus interactive with Cities XXL.

I hate to break it to you, Simcity 4 was the last Simcity game Will Wright had any say in and it was much smaller than the previous titles. 3000 was the last Simcity game that Will Wright had a heavy hand in developing. He stated he was done with Simcity due to all the issues he had developing Simcity 3000 and Simcity 4, including the all the fans who constantly decried what did to 3000 and 4. His goal was to eventually produce a full online Simcity game that had gamers work together in an online region, that fully evolved the concept from Simcity 2000: Network Edition (yes it is the first online Simcity title). He also stated in 2005, that Simcity 4 was too complicated for most people and the next mainline Simcity was going to go back to the basics. He quit Maxis in 2009 after Spores tanked and hasn't developed a game since then (he burnt out). He does run and joint owns Stupid Fun Club Camp, an entertainment thin tank. He also teaches and lectures part time at the university level. Oh he does produces TV shows now as well. He claims he's much happier since he quit developing games. I think he is much happier that he left EA. EA do own half of the stupid fun club so he hasnt totaly distant himself from EA.

I cant see EA walking away from the Sim city franchise. I think Cities Skylines will be a big wake up call for EA. EA had no competition before apart from CXL which wasnt a threat. But now EA do have some serious competition from CO.

They can try but i doubt if EA would buy Paradox. The games that Pardox develop the turn base games are not really EA scene and wouldnt fit into the company. Though EA would love to get there hands on Gamersgate which Paradox owns. I very much doubt Paradox would ever allow EA to buy them out.

If anyone has purchased the game from Origin very recently you can get a refund from EA. I think you have about 7 days to get a refund. So if you are reading the NAM post all is not lost. Get a refund and buy elsewhere.

Paradox is only doing what every other gaming company does and milk the gamers with DLC. EA started this with the Sims and most gaming companies have followed. It is now getting to the stage where you just buy the base game with little content and then you have to buy the DLC to make up for the lack of content. Company of Heroes 2 is a example where there was little content in the base game. So Sega milked the gamer by lack of content and force the gamer into buying the DLC. However Paradox has said from day one you will be able to mod Skylines.

Lots of people at the Paradox forum have been asking CO to do a sim building game since they already have the frame work for it. It will be interesting to see if Maxis will compete and make another SC. I am sure EA wouldn't be happy with the competition. I think this game maybe the killer for EA.

I will wait until they offer it for free on the house which i reckon wont be long.

They've already stated that they have no intentions to officially release bigger maps. Looks like the Orion mod will be the only way to get bigger maps for this game. Never say never. Maxis said that this game could never be played offline and look at what happen we can now play offline. Now there is a mod for the tile size this might just encourage Maxis to do one in the next patch. Wishfull thinking i know but you never know.

No mention of offline mode.

I will wait to buy the game when it is in the bargain bin and by that time we should have offline mode and bigger maps even though EA say they cant make bigger maps.

EA has fallen into the trap of SCS again. They think by having a expansion it will save the game. However they had released heaps of expansions for SCS thinking it would save the game but as it turn out it didn't. The only thing that will save SC13 is bigger map sizes and no online requirements until then i am not buying the game. No amount of expansions will save this game EA should have learn this from SCS.

I don't think that's the case. You have to think of it differently, one that makes companies seem bad when they're really not that bad. They're given a certain amount of time to develop a game, with a certain number of developers. With that they are given a criteria for said game. That being said, they prioritize features according to criteria and ease of development. I'm 100% certain that developing things to make disabled people play easier would be very difficult because there are many unique disabilities that one fix won't work for, and the game is designed to play a specific way. So all in all I would say it's not necessarily that they don't think of the disabled, it's more that they simply don't have the scope to make it so every disabled person can play. Sim City is alright to play with one hand but there are some games where the devs wont allow you to bind keys like the arrow keys and for me this is a real big problem in certain games like Scarface where i cant play the game.